The Big Nowhere (40 page)

Mal said, “You’re out of your mind.”

Buzz said, “I was sorta thinkin’ about askin’ you to join me. A captain out of his mind has got more juice than a loaner cop with a few loose.”

“I’ve got the grand jury, Meeks. And day after tomorrow’s the divorce trial.”

Buzz cracked his knuckles. “You in?”

“No. It’s crazy. And I don’t feature you as the dramatic gesture type, either.”

“I owe him.
We
owe him.”

“No, it’s wrong.”

“Think of the angles, skipper. Loftis as a psycho killer. You pop him for that before the grand jury convenes and UAES’ll go in the toilet so large they’ll hear it flush in Cleveland.”

Mal laughed; Buzz laughed and said, “We’ll give it a week or so. We’ll put together what we can get out of the grand jury file and we’ll talk to Shortell and see what he’s got. We’ll brace Loftis, and if it goes bust, it goes bust.”

“There’s the grand jury, Meeks.”

“A Commie like Loftis popped for four 187’s makes you so large that no judge in this state would fuck you over on your custody case. Think of that.”

Mal broke his pencil in two. “I need a continuance,
now
, and I won’t frame Loftis.”

“That mean you’re in?”

“I don’t know.”

Buzz went for the kill. “Well, shit there,
Captain
. I thought appealin’ to your career would get you, but I guess I was wrong. Just think about Danny Upshaw and how bad he wanted it, and how you got your rocks off sendin’ him after Claire De Haven. Think how maybe her and Loftis played with that cherry kid right before he cut his fuckin’ throat. Then you—”

Mal slapped Buzz hard in the face.

Buzz sat on his hands so he wouldn’t hit back.

Mal threw his list of names on the grass and said, “I’m in. But if this fucks up my grand jury shot, it’s you and me for real. For keeps.”

Buzz smiled. “Yessir, Captain.”

Claire De Haven said, “I take it this means all pretenses are off.”

A weak intro—he knew she had Upshaw made and the grand jury on track. Mal said, “This is about four murders.”

“Oh?”

“Where’s Reynolds Loftis? I want to talk to him.”

“Reynolds is out, and I told you before that he and I will not name names.”

Mal walked into the house. He saw the front page of last Wednesday’s
Herald
on a chair; he knew Claire had seen the piece on Danny’s death, Sheriff’s Academy picture included. She closed the door—
her
no pretense—she wanted to know what
he
had. Mal said, “Four killings. No political stuff unless you tell me otherwise.”

Claire said, “I’ll tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mal pointed to the paper. “What’s so interesting about last week’s news?”

“A sad little obituary on a young man I knew.”

Mal played in. “What kind of young man?”

“I think frightened, impotent and treacherous describes him best.”

The epitaph stung; Mal wondered for the ten millionth time what Danny Upshaw and Claire De Haven did to each other. “Four men raped and cut up. No political stuff for you to get noble about. Do you want to get down off your high Commie horse and tell me what you know about it? What Reynolds Loftis knows?”

Claire walked up to him, perfume right in his face. “You sent that boy to fuck information out of me and now
you
want to preach decency?”

Mal grabbed her shoulders and squeezed them; he got his night’s worth of report study straight in his head. “January 1, Marty Goines snatched from South Central, shot with heroin, mutilated and killed. January 4, George Wiltsie and Duane Lindenaur, secobarbital sedated, mutilated and killed. January 14, Augie Luis Duarte, the same thing. Wiltsie and Duarte were male whores, we know that certain men in your union frequent male whores and the killer’s description is a dead ringer for Loftis. Still want to play cute?”

Claire squirmed; Mal saw her as something wrong to touch and let go. She wheeled to a desk by the stairwell, grabbed a ledger and shoved it at him. “On January first, fourth, and fourteenth, Reynolds was here in full view of myself and others. You’re insane to think he could kill anybody, and this proves it.”

Mal took the ledger, skimmed it and shoved it back to her. “It’s a fake. I don’t know what the crossouts mean, but only your signature and Loftis’ are real. The others are traced over, and the minutes are like Dick and Jane join the Party. It’s a fake, and you had it out and ready. Now you explain that, or I go get a material witness warrant for Loftis.”

Claire held the ledger to herself. “I don’t believe that threat. I think this is some kind of personal vendetta with you.”

“Just answer me.”

“My answer is that your young Deputy Ted kept pressing me about what Reynolds was doing on those nights, and when I discovered that he was a policeman I thought he must have convinced himself that Reynolds did something terrible. Reynolds was here then for meetings, so I left this out for the boy to see, so he wouldn’t launch some awful circumstantial pogrom.”

A perfect right answer. “You didn’t know a graphologist would eat that ledger up in court?”

“No.”

“And what did you think Danny Upshaw was trying to prove against Loftis?”

“I don’t know! Some kind of treason, but not sex murders!”

Mal couldn’t tell if she’d raised her voice to cover a lie. “Why didn’t you show Upshaw your real ledger? You were taking a risk that he’d spot a fake one.”

“I couldn’t. A policeman would probably consider our real minutes treason.”

“Treason” was a howler; profundity from a roundheels who’d spread for anything pretty in pants. Mal laughed, caught himself and stopped; Claire said, “Care to tell me what’s so amusing?”

“Nothing.”

“You sound patronizing.”

“Let’s change the subject. Danny Upshaw had a file on the murders, and it was stolen from his apartment. Do you know anything about that?”

“No. I’m not a thief. Or a comedienne.”

Getting mad shaved ten years off the woman’s age. “Then don’t give yourself more credit than you’re worth.”

Claire raised a hand, then held it back. “If you don’t consider my friends and me serious, then why are you trying to smear us and ruin our lives?”

Mal fizzled at a wisecrack; he said, “I want to talk to Loftis.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m doing the asking. When’s Loftis coming back?”

Claire laughed. “Oh mein policeman, what your face just said. You know it’s a travesty, don’t you? You think we’re too ineffectual to be dangerous, which is just about as wrong as thinking we’re traitors.”

Mal thought of Dudley Smith; he thought of the Red Queen eating Danny Upshaw alive. “What happened with you and Ted Krugman?”

“Get your names straight. You mean Deputy Upshaw, don’t you?”

“
Just tell me
.”

“I’ll tell you he was naive and eager to please and all bluff where women were concerned, and I’ll tell you you shouldn’t have sent such a frail American patriot after us. Frail and clumsy. Did he
really
fall on a cutlery rack?”

Mal swung an open hand; Claire flinched at the blow and slapped back, no tears, just smeared lipstick and a welt forming on her cheek. Mal turned and braced himself against the banister, afraid of the way he looked; Claire said, “You could just quit. You could denounce the wrongness of it, say we’re ineffectual and not worth the money and effort and still sound like a big tough cop.”

Mal tasted blood on his lips. “I want it.”

“For what? Glory? You’re too smart for patriotism.”

Mal saw Stefan waving goodbye; Claire said, “For your son?”

Mal, trembling, said, “What did you say?”

“We’re not the fools you think we are, recently promoted Captain. We know how to hire private detectives and they know how to check records and verify old rumors. You know, I’m impressed with the Nazi you killed and rather surprised that you can’t see the parallels between that regime and your own.”

Mal kept looking away; Claire stepped closer to him.“I understand what you must feel for your son. And I think we both know the fix is in.”

Mal pushed himself off the railing and looked at her. “Yeah. The fix is in, and this conversation didn’t happen. And I still want to talk to Reynolds Loftis. And if he killed those men, I’m taking him down.”

“Reynolds has not killed anyone.”

“Where is he?”

Claire said, “He’ll be back tonight, and you can talk to him then. He’ll convince you, and I’ll make you a deal. I know you need a continuance on your custody trial, and I have friends on the bench who can get it for you. But I don’t want Reynolds smeared to the grand jury.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“Don’t make a career out of underestimating me. Reynolds was hurt badly in ’47, and I don’t think he’d be able to go through it again. I’ll do everything I can to help you with your son, but I don’t want Reynolds hurt.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll take my knocks.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Reynolds has not killed anyone.”

“Maybe that’s true, but he’s been named as a subversive too many times.”

“Then destroy those depositions and don’t call those witnesses.”

“You don’t understand. His name is all over our paperwork a thousand goddamn times.”

Claire held Mal’s arms. “Just tell me you’ll try to keep him from being hurt too badly. Tell me yes and I’ll make my calls, and you won’t have to go to trial tomorrow.”

Mal saw himself doctoring transcripts, shuffling names and realigning graphs to point to other Commies, going mano a mano: his editorial skill versus Dudley Smith’s memory. “Do it. Have Loftis here at 8:00 and tell him it’s going to be ugly.”

Claire took her hands away. “It won’t be any worse than your precious grand jury.”

“Don’t go noble on me, because I know who you are.”

“Don’t cheat me, because I’ll use my friends to ruin you.”

A deal with a real red devil: the continuance buying him time to un-nail a subversive, nail a killer and nail himself as a hero. And just maybe cross Claire De Haven. “I won’t cheat you.”

“I’ll have to trust you. And can I ask you something? Off the record?”

“What?”

“Your opinion of this grand jury.”

Mal said, “It’s a goddamn waste and a goddamn shame.”

Mickey Cohen was pitching a tantrum; Johnny Stompanato was fueling it; Buzz was watching—scared shitless.

They were at the Mick’s hideaway, surrounded by muscle. After the bomb under the house went off, Mickey sent Lavonne back east and moved into the Samo Canyon bungalow, wondering who the fuck wanted him dead. Jack D. called to say it wasn’t him—Mickey believed it. Brenda Allen was still in jail, the City cops had settled into a slow burn and cop bombers played like science fiction. Mickey decided it was the Commies. Some Pinko ordnance expert got word he was fronting the Teamsters, popped his cork and planted the bomb that destroyed thirty-four of his custom suits. It was a Commie plot—it couldn’t be anything else.

Buzz kept watching, waiting by the phone for a call from Mal Considine. Davey Goldman and Mo Jahelka were prowling the grounds; a bunch of goons were oiling the shotguns stashed in the fake panel between the living room and bedroom. Mickey had started squawking half an hour ago, topics ranging from Audrey not giving him any to passive resistance on the picket line and how he was going to fix the UAES’s red wagon. Comedy time until Johnny Stomp showed up and started talking
his
conspiracy.

The guinea Adonis brought bad news: when Petey Skouras blew to Frisco he took a week’s worth of receipts with him—Audrey told him when he picked up the Southside front’s cash take. Buzz horned in on the conversation, thinking the lioness couldn’t be stupid enough to try to play Petey’s splitsville for a profit—Petey himself had to have done it—his bonus atop the thousand-dollar beating. Johnny’s news got worse: he took a baseball bat to a guy on the welcher list, who told him Petey was no skimmer, Petey would never protect a girlfriend’s brother because Petey liked boys—young darky stuff—a habit he picked up in a U.S. army stockade in Alabama. Mickey went around the twist then, spraying spit like a rabid dog, spitting obscenities in Yiddish, making his Jew strongarms squirm. Johnny had to know that his story contradicted Buzz’s story; the fact that he wouldn’t give him an even eyeball clinched it. When Mickey stopped ranting and started thinking, he’d snap to that, too—then he’d start asking questions and it would be another convoluted epic to explain the lie, something along the lines of Skouras protecting his
boyfriend’s
brother, how he didn’t want poor Greek Petey smeared as taking it Greek. Mickey would believe him—probably.

Buzz got out his notepad and wrote a memo to Mal and Ellis Loew—abbreviated skinny from three triggermen moonlighting as picket goons. Their consensus: UAES still biding its time, the Teamster rank and file on fire to whomp some ass, the only new wrinkle a suspicious-looking van parked on Gower, a man with a movie camera in the back. The man, a studious bird with Trotsky glasses, was seen talking to Norm Kostenz, the UAES picket boss. Conclusion: UAES wanted the Teamsters to rumble, so they could capture the ass-whomping on film.

His skate work done, Buzz listened to Mickey rant and checked his real notes—the grand jury and shrink files read over and put together with a few records prowls and a brief talk with Jack Shortell’s partner at the San Dimas Substation. Shortell would be returning from Montana tomorrow; he could hit him for a real rundown on Upshaw’s case then. The partner said that Jack said Danny seemed to think the killings derived from the time of the Sleepy Lagoon murder and the SLDC—it was the last thing the kid talked up before LAPD grabbed him. That in mind, Buzz matched the theory to his file facts.

He got:

Danny told him Reynolds Loftis fit his killing suspect’s description—and in general—“he fits.” Charles Hartshorn, a recent suicide, was rousted with Loftis at a local fruit bar in ’44.

Two identical names and an R&I and DMV check got him Augie Duarte, snuff victim number four, and his cousin, SLDC/UAES hotshot Juan Duarte, currently working at Variety International Pictures—on a set next to the room where victim number three, Duane Lindenaur, worked as a rewrite man. SLDC Lawyer Hartshorn was blackmailed by Lindenaur years ago—a check on the crime report led him to an LASD Sergeant named Skakel, who had also talked to Danny Upshaw. Skakel told him that Lindenaur met Hartshorn at a party thrown by fag impresario Felix Gordean, the man Danny said the killer had a fix on.

The first victim, Marty Goines, died of a heroin overjolt. Loftis’ fiancée Claire De Haven was a skin-popper; she took Dr. Terry Lux’s cure three times. Terry said Loftis copped H for her.

From Mal’s report on the Sammy Benavides/Mondo Lopez/Juan Duarte questioning:

Benavides shouted something about Chaz Minear, Loftis’ fag squeeze, buying boys at a “puto escort service”—Gordean’s?

Also on Minear: in his psych file, Chaz justified snitching Loftis to HUAC by pointing to a third man in a love triangle—“ If you knew who he was, you’d understand why I did it.”

Two strange-o deals:

The ’42 to ’44 pages were missing from Loftis’ psych file and Doc Lesnick couldn’t be found. At the three Mexes’ questioning, one of the guys muttered an aside—the SLDC got letters tapping a “big white man” for the Sleepy Lagoon murder.

Strange-o stuff aside, all circumstantial—but too solid to be coincidence.

The phone rang, cutting through Mickey’s tirade on Commies. Buzz picked it up; Johnny Stomp watched him talk.

“Yeah. Cap, that you?”

“It’s me, Turner, my lad.”

“You sound happy, boss.”

“I just got a ninety-day continuance, so I am happy. Did you do your homework?”

Stompanato was still staring. Buzz said, “Sure did. Circumstantial but tight. You talk to Loftis?”

“Meet me at 463 Canon Drive in an hour. We’ve got him as a friendly witness.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

Buzz hung up. Johnny Stomp winked at him and turned back to Mickey.